Wrestling Column: Bo Nickal exemplifies thrill of NCAA tourney

More than 60 hours have now passed and I still haven’t wrapped my mind around how this one ended.

I’ve been to eight NCAA wrestling tournaments now, starting in 2011 when Cael Sanderson won the first of his seven crowns as head coach at Penn State. My total pales in comparison to that of my colleagues, some of whom have been attending for decades. There are fans who have watched so many more, but I’ve seen enough now to realize that this tournament is never – not once – a letdown. But in Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, where the Nittany Lions won their third in a row with their backs against the wall – or literally the mat – this one outdid them all.

Putting aside how it took PSU until the very last of its 48 total matches, this was a marvel in its entirety. A No. 2 seed went down in the first round, a No. 1 lost in the quarterfinals, a small-school No. 15 seed stormed to the championship round, upsets were common, hearts were broken, dreams were made – and it all happened in three days. As a sporting event, the national wrestling tournament is overwhelmingly climatic, and even those who have been in the stands at the Olympic Games say the NCAAs are their only rival. It wouldn’t surprise me.

But after those three days, I’m numb to the unexpected now. And while there were historic feats and close calls in PSU’s previous championship runs, this most recent one was unforgettable.

Heading into Saturday night’s final, Ohio State led by 6 points with only 10 matches left in the 640-bout tournament. ESPN2 was about to go live on national television. Its cameras panned the tournament-record audience of 19,775 – many of whom were nice and jazzed up on St. Patrick’s Day. With fans from the Buckeyes and Lions taking up the majority, flames from the pyrotechnic torches weren’t the only heat you felt.

While Ohio State held the score advantage, its two finalists were outnumbered by Penn State’s five. But with a head-to-head matchup at 184 pounds, the team race balanced on that weight class. Going into it, that match was all it seemed anyone – media, fans on the street, even some coaches and competitors – could talk about.

For Sanderson and his wrestlers, who maintained throughout the tournament that they were focused on individual results above all else – “Thinking of the team score is only going to hurt the team,” said 165-pound two-time national champion Vincenzo Joseph said. “You can only focus on yourself” – the pressure surrounding the finals was impossible to ignore. Sanderson described the atmosphere beforehand as strenuous.

“You could feel the tensions,” he told me. “I was feeling a little bit for Bo obviously, because we knew regardless of what happened we had to win that match.”

Then it was Nickal who helped lighten the mood, three hours before he shattered it.

Before the start of the final round, the eight medal-winners from each of the 10 weight classes were introduced as part of the Parade of All-Americans. They were ushered out in reverse order, starting with the heavyweights, so Nickal was the first PSU finalist on the mat, waiting to greet the other four.

Instead of a stone-faced nod, a high five or a dap to greet his teammates, Nickal put a wide grin on his face and whimsically waved as they strolled toward the stage. It had me laughing enough beforehand to ask him about it afterward.

“It’s kind of how we are, no matter what the situation is,” he replied. “I think I would do the same thing whether we’re on the mat and the other guys are walking out, or if I’m walking down the street on campus. So just be yourself. Everybody I think tries to act like a tough guy when they get out there and stuff like that, but it doesn’t really make any sense to me. I just want to be myself no matter what.”

From there, Sanderson said, “They were relaxed and ready to go compete. It’s the national championship and you see a lot of crazy things.”

And the finals didn’t lack any of those crazy things. First, Zain Retherford won his third consecutive 149-pound championship, but he was tested far more than he was in his final bouts the two previous years – this time by that Cinderella No. 15 seed, Ronnie Perry of Lock Haven. Jason Nolf overcame a significant late-season knee injury to win his second consecutive 157-pound title, topping previously undefeated Hayden Hidlay of North Carolina State. Then, in a rematch of last year’s 165-pound final against Illinois great Isaiah Martinez, Joseph went all deja vu, inside tripping Martinez to his back once again. He didn’t get the fall like he did last year, but it boosted him to a commanding 5-point victory. In what was the most thrilling 7-minute match of the finals – how about that scramble?! – Mark Hall fell short of repeating at 174, dropping an 8-2 decision to Arizona State’s Zahid Valencia.

But showing uncommon graciousness in the wake of defeat, Hall was the first one out to congratulate Nickal after he sealed the deal. It was only moments after Nickal pinned Ohio State’s Myles Martin with a counter move. The move has many names –cement job or mixer to an elevator or a Rico – but whatever you call it, Nickal has been doing it since he was 6 years old. And as he walked off the mat, Hall hustled out to be the first to greet him.

The gesture hadn’t yet settled in when the ESPN crew corralled an exuberant Nickal for an interview, one that now has gone nearly viral across social media and in which he proclaims, “You come to Penn State, you win big matches, you win team titles!”

Nickal is normally well-composed in public settings, so when I asked him if emotions had gotten the best of him, I described his response as demonstrative, admitting that there was probably a better word for it. Animated, maybe. Spirited, closer. More, it was genuine. True authenticity – and maybe more than anything, that’s what this tournament offers.

“It’s a crazy moment and the interview is straight after, so you don’t have time to cool down or anything,” Nickal told me. “Still, everything I said is true: You go to Penn State to win titles as an individual and as a team. That’s what we do. And that’s what we trained for. And we have the best coaches in the country, best facilities, best fans – and best wrestling, easily.”

And at NCAAs it’s on full display and is what makes the tournament so compelling. No two are alike, and Nickal’s triumph over Martin is a microcosm.

It was the ninth time that the Big Ten rivals had met in three years of eligibility apiece. Martin won only twice in that span, with his first victory coming when the two met in the NCAA final their freshman year in 2016. But each match – akin to every year at NCAA championships – has defined its own character.

“Every single time we’ve wrestled it has been different, and that just shows how cool wrestling is because you can wrestle someone nine times, you can wrestle them 90 times or 900 times, and it’s probably going to be different,” Nickal said. “No two matches are alike. That’s why wrestling is such a cool sport, because I get to go train every day and every day is different. It’s not like other sports where football, I have to run a slant route [routinely], or basketball I’ve got to shoot a thousand free throws. There’s repetition in drilling and stuff like that, but even if you repeat a high-crotch [takedown] a thousand times, it’s going to be a little different and you’re going to have to do little different things to beat guys in certain situations every match.”

And in his latest, which now makes him a two-time champ and Hodge Trophy finalist alongside Retherford, Nickal pulled out his best trick yet. But in Cleveland, although his was under the brightest lights, he wasn’t the only one to entertain.